Lead Content in Two Vegetable Species Collected from Several Local Markets

Abstract

This study was designed to assess lead content in soil and two vegetable species collected from several sites in Baghdad. The results showed that Swiss chard had lead content varied from 0.930 ± 0.23 µg/g to 1.988 ± 0.42 µg/g and these data were higher than those found in celery which ranged from 0.216 ± 0.08 µg/g to 0.935 ± 0.22 µg/g. In case of celery plants cultivated in both Al- Autyfia and Al- Qanat sites, lead content has been found to be affected significantly ( P≥ 0.5) by the distance from motor road where higher content was found in plants closed to motor verge than those 15 meter away. For soil lead content, the results showed that lead content was almost two times greater than those of vegetable plant and again lead concentration was affected by the distance from the motorway verge in both sites where lead content varied from 1.512 ± 0.42 µg/g to 2.279 ± 1.04 µg/g and from 2.102 ± 0.82 µg/g to 2.656 ± 0.62 µg/g in Al- Autyfia and Al- Qanat samples respectively. However, these data in celery plants ranged from 1.389 ± 0.36 µg/g to 1.607 ± 0.88 for Al- Autyfia and from 1.359 ± 0.68 µg/g to 1.582 ± 0.92 µg/g for Al- Qanat cultivated yard.

Keywords

• lead
• motor road
• cultivated yards
• celery
• and swiss chard